Sarah Foster

RICK JACKSON: Girl power rules – at the age of two

From what I understand about sport, it takes a certain kind of dedication to turn it from a hobby into your profession.

Millions of people enjoy kicking a football around, thwacking leather with willow, or swishing a stick across a pristine-looking field.

But it takes years of diets, endless hours of training and Jedi-like powers of concentration – not to mention a ruthless hunger to be better than everyone else – to make it to the very top of your game.

So why would you, when you’ve finally made it to the pinnacle of what your sport has to offer, choose to chuck it down the drain, risking the wrath of the nation while you’re at it?

Footballer Wayne Rooney and the England rugby team have both come unstuck this month. Rooney for a hot-headed tackle (I blame his new thatch) and the rugby squad for acting like fools off the pitch and amateurs on it.

People blame ludicrously high wages and our culture of hero worship for the inflated sense of arrogance many of our modern day sports stars now display.

But George Best was hardly renowned for being a hold-it-back kind of character, so that’s not a universal truth.

There’s one fact you can’t ignore though. You never see the women’s teams replicating the off-field shenanigans we hear about so regularly with the men.

Their players don’t throw themselves off ferries, or snog like teenagers in bars during the middle of tournaments they’ve been gearing up to all their lives.

So perhaps the men’s game needs to look at the women’s game. Or maybe mixed sport could be the answer to all our prayers.

The blokes could still pretend they’re the superior players, drive the flash cars and keep the Champagne industry afloat.

But the women would be on hand to routinely deflate those troublesome egos by pointing out when they’re being plonkers and show them a trick or two on the pitch while they’re at it.

Or maybe the men just need to grow up.

I mean, why go to the trouble of growing a pair of thighs like mighty oaks, only to find yourself back on civvy street with your head hanging in shame – and a ridiculous set of legs to show for your efforts?